49ers’ proposed stadium gets boost from park sale

A San Francisco real estate company’s purchase of the Great America amusement park in Santa Clara could make it easier for the 49ers to open an oft-discussed new stadium there, supporters of the proposed stadium say.

JMA Ventures, a local real estate company that specializes in redeveloping large-scale lifestyle properties, said Monday that it bought the amusement park, which is next to the potential stadium, from Ohio’s Cedar Fair Entertainment for $70 million.

Cedar Fair opposed plans calling for a 68,500-seat stadium to be built next to the amusement park, but JMA supports them. JMA will work with the 49ers to integrate the proposed stadium into the amusement park, company officials said. An entity affiliated with the team will likely partner with JMA, officials said.

“The amusement park has been an important part of our city for many years and with the addition of the stadium and other development proposals that are coming forward, we are excited about creating a premier family entertainment destination,” Santa Clara Mayor Jamie Matthews said in a statement.

JMA also said it will drop a lawsuit filed by Cedar Fair Entertainment over the plan to put the stadium on a city-owned parking lot used by the theme park.

“We are excited by this new opportunity and partnership with JMA,” Steve Weakland, a spokesman for the team, said in a statement. “It creates great synergy between two of the largest family entertainment destinations in the region.”

The deal, which still needs to be approved by the Santa Clara City Council, may also help muffle concerns about the amount of parking the proposed stadium would have. Opponents have complained that the plan to move the team from Candlestick Park to a new stadium just north of the San Jose airport doesn’t provide enough parking and will create a log jam of traffic before and after games.

New ownership at Great America means the Niners may have a more cooperative partner and easier access to the amusement park’s expansive parking lots.

“There are two things that smooth out traffic, one is something to do before and after the game, which Oakland and San Francisco don’t have,” said Larry Stone, the Santa Clara County assessor and a supporter of bringing the stadium to Santa Clara. “And two is to have multiple ways to get in or out of the stadium.”

“We’ll have both,” he added.

But opponents of the plan are still skeptical. Financing the stadium remains a major question, and the price tag has grown by $50 million over the past year, sending the cost to nearly $1 billion.

This deal “may be another pipe dream they are dreaming up, I am not sure,” said Michael Antonini, a San Francisco planning commissioner and avid opponent of moving the team out of the city. “It doesn’t really solve their parking problem and doesn’t really solve their problem with transit they have down there, so it might be a step in the wrong direction.”